Sergei Chernetskii marked himself out as a strong outsider for the Tour of Beijing when he finished fourth in the uphill sprint on stage 2. Having shown great form in recent races, the Russian has the full support of Katusha in the WorldTour race.

Sergei Chernetckii from Team Katusha was 4th today at stage 2 of the UCI WorldTour event Tour of Beijing. The stage, which was planned to finish in Yanqing, was shortened to 111 km due to the smog. Because of that, the finish of the stage was placed on the top of the 3rd category climb Yan Jia Ping (1 km, 8% average gradient).

"Before the start all teams received the information that the stage would be shortened due the unfavorable conditions while the finish would be done at the top of the last climb. So we had time to coordinate team’s tactics to help our leader Sergei Chernetckii to get maximum possible result. The climb was not as hard as was drawn in the roadbook, so a big group of riders was there to finish together. Sergei was able to go in front in the final metres and to get the 4th position. I think this is a very good result. We will see what will happen in the next days, because there is a possibility for more stage changes due to the smog. So that’s good we could do something today. The whole team did a nice job," said sports director of Team Katusha Gennady Mikhaylov.

Philippe Gilbert from BMC won the uphill sprint ahead of Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg from Giant-Shimano, Rui Costa from Lampre, Sergei Chernetckii and recent Il Lombardia winner Dan Martin from Garmin Sharp.

After the finish, the whole peloton moved by cars to Yanqing where the final 3 km were done by bikes to do a ceremonial finish.

In the general classification Gilbert is the new overall leader while Sergei Chernetckii moved up to 7th, 11 seconds behind the leader.

Tomorrow the third stage of Tour of Beijing is planned – 176 km from Yanqing to Quianjiadian Chao Yang Temple.